Mental Imagery Cultivation as a Cultural Phenomenon: The Role of Visions in Shamanism [and Comments and Reply]

TLDR

Human beings innately experience mental imagery, and this capacity is cultivated within magico‑religious traditions that are independent of societal complexity. The authors propose mental imagery cultivation as a framework to identify traditions that deliberately induce enhanced imagery in select individuals, exemplified by shamanic vision practices. They define mental imagery cultivation as the deliberate, repeated induction of heightened imagery within specific cultural traditions. Training that enhances mental imagery boosts its vividness and control, and psychological studies show that imagery operates equivalently to perception at nonvolitional levels, that individual differences in imagery ability influence a shaman’s social role, and that imagery underlies superior mnemonic skills.

Abstract

The ability to experience mental imagery is innate in human beings. "Mental imagery cultivation" is proposed to identify technological traditions devoted to the deliberate, repeated induction of enhanced mental imagery, usually in select individuals. Mental imagery enhancement training increases the vividness and the controlledness of mental imagery for its functional and adaptive value. Mental imagery cultivation is usually embedded within magico-religious traditions and is independent of societal complexity. The cultivation of visions in shamanism is explored as an example. Experimental evidence from the psychological literature is presented that demonstrates the functional equivalence of mental imagery and perception at specific nonvolitional levels of the psychophysiological apparatus, thus suggesting that the shaman experiences "visions" as "real" and reacts on a deep psychophysiological level to their contents. Individual differences in mental imagery ability may be a major determinant of the social role of the shaman. Experimental evidence for the functional importance of mental imagery in human memory is presented to suggest that the shaman's legendary superior mnemonic skills may be due to the development of his use of mental imagery.